I watched the Justin Timberlake Super Bowl halftime show and knew only one song he sang -- something about “Sunshine in my pocket” -- and that’s because my girlfriend forced me to listen to it on the top 40 radio station she tunes to.

I feel as if I’m in “Fiddler on the Roof” and singing,

“Is this the little girl I carried?

"Is this the little boy at play?

"I don't remember growing older,

"When did they?”

The two little girls I carried are now grown women with families of their own and I am a grandfather three times over.

It seems just a few years ago I held my oldest on my stomach, nose bandaged and stuffed with gauze from a recent sinus operation, and she leaned back and rocked forward. Pow! She couldn’t talk yet, but for some reason she chose to head butt me right in the nose. I saw red. Then I saw stars. And then I was screaming. But I held on to her to make sure she didn’t fall off me and the couch.

It seems just a few years ago when I rocked my youngest all night as she suffered through the chicken pox, alternately crying and sleeping, not yet coordinated enough to scratch, as I administered Benadryl doses.

Now, I know I have to get the shingles shot.

It seems just a few years ago when I’d look at the 40-year-olds warming up for a road race and marvel at their ability to keep running at such an advanced age.

I recently took one of those online quizzes where they guaranteed they’d be able to guess my age from my answers.

They said I was 40. They said wrong. Maybe 60 is the new 40?

Or maybe the fact I chose granite kitchen countertops in my imaginary home completely threw off the quiz results.

Of course I have friends who say I act more like 14 than 40, let alone 60, and they don’t mean that in a good way.

The more observant among you will note I’ve updated my column photo. Finally. This is what I really look like. Truth in advertising.

I wish I had some sage advice to give at 60. You’d think having survived testicular cancer in my mid-20s and then having survived a car crushing me when I was riding my bike in my mid-50s, I would have something worthwhile to say. Some great life insight to pass on.

So I say, whatever your hair does, it does. Go with it. Curly and frizzy? Choose a haircut that allows your hair to be curly and frizzy. Straight and spiky, like mine? Choose a haircut that takes advantage of that straightness and spikiness.

Life’s too short to fight with your hair.

That’s all I got.

Dan Mac Alpine lives in Ipswich and writes and edits for the Ipswich Chronicle print and web editions.